Tuesday Conversation: Jason DiSalvo

Jason DiSalvo switched teams, brands, and class for 2009, and the result has been a handful of AMA Pro Dayton SportBike podiums and some spectacular on-track battles with teammate Martin Cardenas. At Laguna, he’ll continue to hunt an elusive first victory in the class while trying to smooth out a recent trend of impressive but slightly bipolar weekends.

You finished third in last year’s Superbike championship. Do you miss riding one?
A little bit, yeah. I mean, I definitely want to get back on a superbike as soon as possible, really, but at the same time, I felt I had some unfinished business on a 600. I’ve always been pretty quick on a 600, but it’s been kind of elusive, that first victory. But for sure, yes, I want to get back on a superbike, and it seems like it’s probably even better competition now. That being said, I don’t think that Mat’s riding at the same level he was last year; I don’t know if it’s all the bike. But you know, I actually can’t even answer this question 100 percent, because I don’t know what level of performance the superbikes are really at now. From what I’ve been hearing, though, the difference is pretty significant. Seems like I might have taken all those trick parts last year for granted a little bit. So yeah, I’d like to get back, even though I’m having fun riding a 600.

How would you rate the SportBike competition?
Really good. It’s usually a pretty tight battle for the majority of the race. There’s been a few times where Martin’s broken away at the end or I’ve broken away at the end, and a couple where both Martin and myself have broken away at the end. I think the whole M4 team has been really strong so far, but I noticed a lot of the other teams and riders really stepped it up at the last test, so I think the competition will get even more heated toward the end of the season, especially with Martin breaking away in the points a little bit. It’s going to make everyone else really hungry for those wins, because those are the only things that can put a dent in his lead right now.

This is your first year with the M4 team. How’s it going under the tent?
You know, at the end of the season last year, there weren’t that many jobs available that weren’t already spoken for. It was musical chairs and we were the ones who got caught standing. Then John [Ulrich] really stepped up big and put us together a good offer where we could go race the bike and have a shot at winning a championship. It was kind of hard back then to stomach the fact that there were no rides available, and I kind of felt like Jake [Zemke] did the year before; he finished third in the superbike championship and ended up facing pretty much the same position. I don’t know, maybe that Superbike class third position is cursed or something. But anyway, the M4 team is so fantastic—these guys just work so hard it’s really amazing. What they maybe lack in funding or being able to have access to the latest and greatest parts vs. the factory teams, they more than make up for in good, old-fashioned elbow grease. 

And having Martin as a teammate?
Great. I’ve been pretty lucky with that too the last couple years—Eric [Bostrom] was an awesome teammate to have, and Martin is as well. He’s just a really good guy, and on the track he’s one of the more difficult competitors I’ve ever had to race against. He’s really stepped up his game this year, and I think we kind of both have, and it’s been good—I push him, he pushes me, even in testing with our lap times and stuff, and I think that’s kind of elevated the whole team to the level we’re at right now. And another thing is I know with Martin we can race really, really close, and we both trust each other. That’s cool. Though if he doesn’t start letting up a little toward the ends of those races, I might have to start getting a little rougher [laughs].

You’ve been on the box several times this year, but your weekends seem to be following a half good, half lousy formula.
Yeah, I know! It seems like that’s the trend—one up, one down; it’s exactly like that. I knew after the first race at Road America when we struggled in the wet—and we had all kinds of problems in that race, like I had water coming down between my tearoffs, my handgrip came off, everything that could go wrong went wrong—I knew the next race was going to be awesome, because we’d already had our bad one. It was like, “Okay, that sucked—time to get on the box again.”

Have you figured out what you need to do to be more consistent?
Well, I was working on that a little bit at Elkhart, but you know, both races we’ve had in the rain this year, I just haven’t been 100 percent comfortable. At Barber I finished seventh or eighth, but when it was all said and done, it was like, Well, I didn’t really leave anything out there; I was pushing to my limits the whole time. So I’ve kind of got to get the rain thing figured out, but mostly I’m just hoping for less rain [laughs]. So that’s played havoc on two of the races, and the other two I’ve fallen down out of the lead. And with those, I just couldn’t get my head around it really. I went a year and a half with Yamaha and the superbike—longer than that, I think—not crashing out of any races at all. I tipped over in practice and testing and stuff, but never in the race. But I was pushing pretty hard, and obviously both of those times I was probably pushing a little too hard.

I think the biggest thing is just staying calm at the beginning of the race. It seemed like I could get into the lead, but it’s like a frenzy, you’re riding so hard to get a gap, and what it seems like with our team I really need to do is just get out there and run with those guys, because our bike really shines at the end of the race. So you have to kind of wait, and then at the end just pour it on, because it seems like our bikes get better as the race goes on. It’s funny. So many of the races, especially Barber and Infineon, Martin and I both did our fastest laps almost on the final lap. Even though the tires are going off, the bike seems to like it almost—you can kind of steer it with the tire a little bit more, and it somehow becomes more forgiving.

Are you looking forward to Laguna and the couple of new tracks the series will visit?
Yeah, definitely. I love Laguna—the track itself, I mean, and how beautiful the area is (the crowds I could do without)—and I’m really interested in going to test at New Jersey. I wish we had a test at Topeka, because it’s obviously going to be pretty difficult to just go there and race, especially with this year’s schedule, where you get one practice then have to qualify in the top-ten your second practice. So yeah, glad we get to test at New Jersey, and I’ve heard really, really good things about that track, too. Topeka, I haven’t even looked at a track map yet. In fact, I think I’m going to go look at a track map as soon as I’m done talking to you. But I mean, the local guys, guys like Rob Jensen, who I think has been there every year doing the CCS stuff, my money’s on him to lead the first practice. That’s the guy I’m looking for there on track. I want to start by following him, and if the other guys in the class are thinking about that too, it could like the 250 class in GP, where everyone just follows the top guy [laughs].